Scenarios for downloadable reports

John, a digital marketing analyst at Amazing Shows wants to assess the performance of his three programs. Amazing Shows owns exclusive rights for these programs, each program publishes its videos on a different channel, and all three channels are linked to Amazing Shows’ main CMS. Channels generate revenue through ads. Let's take a look at how he can answer these common questions.

Maximize your revenue potential and performance with Downloadable Reports. Analyze what your viewers like and what performs best so you can divvy up your revenue accordingly.

Scenario 1: How can you maximize your revenue potential?

John notices that his revenue is dropping and is trying to figure out what to do. He is also thinking of this as an opportunity to revisit his operations to maximize his revenue potential.

Here are some key things you can check for:

Check for unclaimed videos.

Downloadable Reports only show data for the videos you have claimed with an asset and have chosen a policy for. Have you added any new channels without applying your usage policy onto them? You can bulk update claims in the Content Manager across unclaimed videos and channels and apply your usage policies to them.

To monetize user-generated content which you own the rights to, but has been uploaded by third parties:

Update only Content ID claims using the original match policy: This updates any claims that were matched through the Content ID system.

Update all user-uploaded videos claimed against these assets: This updates the automatically-generated Content ID claims, plus any claims that were triggered manually via the Manual Claim tool.

Choose your desired policy and the desired update option, then save.

Check and update your ad formats. Another reason why revenue might be relatively low is if your ad formats aren’t up-to-date. Different ad formats will generate higher/lower revenues and you’ll want to enable as many strategic ad formats as possible. To update ad formats, follow the steps described here!

You can also set default ad formats at the channel level so that all videos uploaded to a channel have the ad formats you prefer enabled automatically.

Tips

Scenario 2: How can I maximize performance?

John wants to know which of his channels and shows is performing the best so he knows which show to continue funding or how he can best distribute revenue based on performance.

Which of John’s channels is performing best on YouTube? What’s his top-performing content (like a show or series)?

John can analyze performance on a channel or content level with the Ads Partner Revenue report (Summary), which allows him to track revenue, views and watch time and compare them to each. If John wants to look at content performance, he should also include data about UGC videos that he claimed. Performance data can be found in YouTube Analytics earnings, watch time /views or Downloadable Reports, the steps below are for Downloadable Reports.

Download the report for the desired period of time.

Filter per channel ID - Data on videos published on the channel in question.

Sum up columns for revenues, views and watch time.

Analyze how successful your content is:

Download the report for the desired period of time.

Filter per Asset Channel ID - data per asset claiming both the licensed video on John’s channel and all the UGC videos uploaded by third parties.

Sum up columns for revenues, views and watch time.

Scenario 3: What content attracts my viewers?

John wants to know which videos attract the most viewers across his three channels/programs, so he knows what type of videos to recommend producing in the future.

Analyze performance of individual videos:

John can analyze how well his content is doing with the Video Report. This is an analysis can happen at the Content Owner level or channel level by looking at the performance of individual videos instead of the whole channel.

First set benchmarks and goals for your views, watch time, number of comments, revenue. Then look at how these videos performed against your metrics.

Use the video report to get data on videos that are and aren’t monetized (versus the Ads Partner Revenue report).

Download the report for the desired period of time.

Filter per username (channel ID) - in case the channel is relevant.

Sum up columns for View Count and Comment Count.

Gather view count, watch time, number of comments, revenues.

Compare them to your goals and see what % increase/decrease happened for the specific time period you are measuring to help you decide which programs to continue funding.

Scenario 4: Where does my content perform best?

John can see how different types of content perform in different markets and determine if he wants to invest further in this market (territorial analysis). In which markets is Channel 1 content performing the best?

Scenario 5: How can I equitably distribute revenue to stakeholders?

Based on how well each program does, John would like to pay each team (creators, producers, scriptwriters, etc) a proportional amount of the revenue. He should conduct a revenue per channel analysis and look at the revenue generated by both the videos on the channel in question and the claimed videos uploaded by third party users.

Analyze revenue per channel:

Download the report for the desired period of time.

Filter per Asset Channel ID.

Sum up columns for revenue data.

Do this for each channel to allocate funds to each team.

Scenario 6: What if I notice discrepancies in my data?

You may notice your earnings numbers differ in different reports across different parts of the YouTube platform. Here are some common discrepancies between reports, and why they may show up:

Downloadable Report vs. YouTube Analytics

Revenue data on YouTube Analytics is often different than what you’ll see in your Downloadable Reports; it’s not uncommon for either one to reflect higher or lower earnings than the other. YouTube Analytics updates monthly, once earnings are finalized (around the 10th of the month). All figures are estimates up until that update happens. Downloadable Reports contain more accurate and additional data, including revenue from your ad sales; final monthly revenue information for your videos and assets.